Hillary Clinton Faces Trust Deficit With Voters — WSJ/NBC Poll

A man takes a picture of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she signs copies of her book “Hard Choices” at a Costco store in Arlington, Va., on June 14, 2014.

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Americans think Hillary Clinton is capable of being president, but they’re still not sure whether to trust her.

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found 55% of all voters think Mrs. Clinton is “knowledgeable and experienced enough to handle the presidency,” but more voters disagree than agree with the statement that she is “honest and straightforward.”

The poll results highlight a problem that has dogged Mrs. Clinton since her 2008 campaign. Her three decades in national politics have cemented an image of an experienced public servant with the chops to be president but who has a tougher time making a personal connection with voters and gaining their trust.

Today, 38% of voters say she is “honest and straightforward,” compared with 40% who say she isn’t. That figure is better for Mrs. Clinton than in March 2008, during the Democratic primaries, when 33% said she was honest and 43% said she wasn’t. But she may have trouble making up more of that ground as she moves out of her self-imposed break from politics and is increasingly seen as a 2016 presidential candidate.

“She’s a mature political figure where people have decided views and it’s not surprising that as she moves from being secretary of State to a candidate, she goes through a different filter in how she’s being viewed,” said pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, which conducted the poll along with Hart Research Associates.

A week into her book tour, Mrs. Clinton has faced criticism that she hasn’t given straight answers. She had to quickly walk back her comment that she and Bill Clinton were “dead broke” when they left the White House in 2001 and struggled when asked when she began favoring gay marriage, during an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross.

The good news for Mrs. Clinton is that would-be Democratic voters surveyed in the poll betrayed few qualms about her – making it very difficult for any potential primary opponent to make a case against her.

Mrs. Clinton has faced down questions about her ability to reach normal voters before. During the runup to her 2000 Senate campaign in New York, the then-first lady embarked on a “listening tour” across the state during which she was portrayed herself as a sort of everywoman. But replicating that dynamic during the political age of Twitter as the presumptive Democratic nominee would be a tall task.

Click to see more June WSJ/NBC poll graphics.

She does at least 15 percentage points better among Democrats now than she did in March 2008. Asked whether she is “knowledgeable and experienced” enough, 88% of Democrats say yes, up from 73% six years ago. Four in five Democrats say she understands average people, compared with 64% in 2008.

“Never underestimate how incredibly powerful it is to say you’re knowledgeable and experienced enough to handle the presidency,” Mr. McInturff said. “To start a race with that is an extraordinary compliment.”

The biggest jumps for Mrs. Clinton among Democrats come on the questions of whether she shares positions on issues (a 20 percentage point increase – largely a factor of her vote in favor of the Iraq war fading into memory), whether she is honest and straightforward (a 23 percentage point increase from 2008) and whether she is “easygoing and likable.” Two-thirds of Democrats now say she is likable, up from 45% in 2008, when Mr. Obama famously dubbed her “likable enough” during a New Hampshire primary debate.

The poll, conducted June 11 through 15, surveyed 1,000 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for the full sample.

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